Research finds that laws and practices burdening religion are related to higher levels of corruption.

This is borne out by simple comparison between the Pew Research Center’s 2012 Government Restrictions on Religion Index with the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine of the ten most corrupt countries have high or very high governmental restrictions on religious liberty, including North Korea, which Pew does not have enough data to rate but considers one of the most religiously restrictive countries.

Religious freedom also implies that business people can draw on religious values and moral teachings in their businesses. The attempt to force businesses to act as entirely secular organizations may be one contributing factor to the corruption, greed and shortsighted decisions that led to the global economic collapse of 2008 and still affects many people and nations today. Allowing religion to inform business ethnics certainly is an aspect of religious freedom.

The two religious characteristics associated with peace are LOW government restrictions on religious behavior and LOW social hostilities involving religion. In addition, countries with higher religious diversity are, on average, more peaceful and have less restrictions on or social hostilities involving religion than countries with religious monopolies.

The impact of government restrictions on and socialhostilities involving religion can be seen by looking at government type, which is a key driver of peace.

Source: IEP, PEW, EIU

GOVERNMENT TYPEAs governments are further away from being a full democracy (see chart), religious hostilities and government restrictions on religious freedom are more severe. The trend holds true across the board, although, because of the repressive nature of authoritarian regimes, such regimes hold down social hostilities more than hybrid and flawed democracies because of the often overwhelming force used to control any social opposition or political dissent.

Full democracies have the best average performance in peace, and the lowest levels of religious restrictions and religious hostilities. Less regulation of religion reduces the grievances of religions, and also decreases the ability of any single religion to wield undue political power (also see The Price of Freedom Denied). Full democracies outperform every other government type. Full democracies are on average 58% more peaceful, have 131% less religious restrictions and 49% less religious hostility than authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian regimes have the worst performance in peace and unsurprisingly in religious restrictions. However, authoritarian regimes are the second best performing government type on the Social Hostilities Index, reflecting the ‘enforced peace’ that can occur in some authoritarian contexts. Every full democracy, except the US, is amongst the 50 most peaceful countries in the world. Full democracies have disproportionately higher levels of non-believers than other forms of government. However, the overall proportions of atheists are generally very low and are therefore incapable of creating a strong influence on the factors that affect peace. Full democracies are peaceful regardless of the levels of religious belief.

RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

Countries that are more religiously diverse - that is, without a dominant religious group - have, on average, higher levels of peace and less government restrictions towards religion. They also have lower levels of religious hostilities. In this study, a dominant religious group means there is more than 60% of the population identifying as followers of a particular belief system or denomination.

Countries without a dominant religious group are on average 17% more peaceful than countries with a dominant religious group. Similarly, countries without a dominant religious group have on average 25% less religious restrictions and 40% lower religious hostilities.

The presence of mulitple religions in a country appears to have a pacifying effect if they are free of restrictions. Alternatively, if the members of a religious group dominates and “achieves a monopoly”, they are likely to be able to access and use the power of the state. What has been seen in the past is that dominant religious groups with state power are open to persecute other religious groups and competitors.

The bloody conflict of ISIS in northern Iraq is not a Sunni-Shia conflict, but rather the ultra-extremist Sunni Islamic State trying to enforce its intolerant vision on all Muslims and non-Muslims alike, regardless of sectarian identity. And despite the apparent role of Sunni and Shia sectarian violence in parts of the Middle East today, when reviewed globally, countries with high proportions of Sunni and Shia are not necessarily violent or plagued with conflict, according to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace carried out in conjunction with the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation.

Iran also has a similar proportional breakdown, except it has a Shia instead of Sunni majority. This suggests the religious demographic breakdown is not necessarily a deterministic factor to peace. Similarly, there are differing peace levels for countries where Sunni and Shia have similar proportions of a population. Bahrain is significantly more peaceful than other countries with a similar proportional Sunni/Shia split such as Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. There are many relatively peaceful countries which have a significant proportion of Sunni and Shia.

However, it is important to note that based on a perception survey from Pew Research the Sunni and Shia divide is considered significant by Muslims with 73% of countries with significant numbers of Muslims believing that friction between religious groups is a moderately or very big problem for their country. Undoubtedly, sectarian violence has been a major feature of armed conflict in the Middle East today. This is evidenced by the fact that when countries with majority Muslim populations have engaged in armed conflict it is generally civil or inter-religious conflict. Indeed, the twenty-first century has not been marked by the clash of civilisations but rather intra-group conflict. Of the 15 armed conflicts motivated in part by Islamist groups in 2013, all but 5 occurred in countries where Muslims were in the majority.Religious restrictions do not correlate very strongly with peace at only 0.24, whereas religious hostilities do at 0.61. This suggests that for the majority of Muslim countries government restrictions towards religion has less of an impact on peace than religious hostilities do. 70% of Muslim-majority countries are authoritarian regimes, with 23% hybrid regimes. There are only three flawed democracies, and no full democracies. As such it is unsurprising that Muslim-majority countries have high levels of government restrictions.

What distinguishes Muslim-majority countries is differing performance in the Pillars of Peace, a framework developed by IEP to assess the positive peace factors that create peaceful societies. Specifically, countries that have lower corruption, well-functioning government and better relations with neighbors are more peaceful regardless of the particular levels of Sunni and Shia.

The Pillars of Peace provide an insight into what features differentiate the peace performance of countries with high levels of Sunni and Shia. Three of the 8 Pillars of Peace correlate with the GPI for the most Muslim countries.

Well-Functioning Government

Based on several factors, from how governments are elected and the political culture they engender, to the quality of the public services they deliver and their political stability. Strong relationships across a number of these indicators and sub-indicators demonstrate the interdependent nature of the various governance indicators. These measures are consistently linked to peace.

Good Relations with Neighbors

Refers to the relations between individuals and communities as well as to cross-border relations. Countries with positive external relations are more peaceful and tend to be more politically stable, have better functioning governments, are regionally integrated and have low levels of organized internal conflict.

Low Levels of Corruption

In societies with high corruption resources are inefficiently allocated, making business inefficient and often leading to a lack of funding for essential services. The resulting inequality can lead to civil unrest and in extreme situations can be the catalyst for more violence. Low levels of corruption, by contrast, can enhance business confidence and trust in institutions, which in turn helps to create informal institutions that enhance peace.

Governments that highly restrict religious freedom also tend to have more problems with corruption, according to a new analysis by the Weekly Number.

Governments with very high levels of restrictions on religious freedom also have higher levels of corruption (median of 7.1 on a 10-point scale) compared with countries with low restrictions on religious freedom (5.3).*

While this does not establish a causal link between religious freedom and lower corruption, it does suggest that religious freedom may one of the contributing factors to a less corrupt society.

While the links between corruption and economic growth have been explored - with differing effects depending on government types and economic circumstance - in what way might increasing religious freedom in China also assist with combatting corruption?

Commenting on the recent destruction of a multi-million dollar church building in Wenzhou by Chinese officials purportedly for not following building codes, Joseph, who did on give his full name, observed, "Even if the authorities determined that erecting religious articles on the site is against the law, they should allow us to appeal through legal means. This could help build the rule of law in society and stop corruption."

Indeed, better understanding religious freedom may also shed light on new and effective ways to combat corruption.